Huge Explosion Tehran, TSHTF Bigtime Tonight?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Someone has been doing naughty things with fissionable isotopes...

There will be tears before bedtime, mark my words...

But the reviews will all be glowing.

[Cormac]

And of course I am being racist.

I'm not racist

A racist is someone who is being racist , QED you is racist.

Israel isn't a racist State because it excludes some Palestinians.

It is a gerrymandered state, set up to ensure a Jewish Israeli majority.

You could say that makes it electorially corrupt, but it doesn't make it racist.

So you're reflecting gerrymandering by being racist.

It does, however make it a sectarian state, which makes it democratically illegitimate.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Israel has a rather justifiable siege mentality to some extent, I think.

[Schneibster]

The trouble with Gawd's posts on Israel is that he goes so far over the top that most people simply dismiss him (fair enough) and his criticisms of Israeli actions, which may be throwing the baby out with the bath-water...

Problem being, since we brought babies up, that the other side is complicit because they're providing the provocation. We can't tell the Israelis "no" and have it stick because the Palestinians keep shooting rockets at unarmed Israeli civilians, i.e. blowing up babies, the very definition of indiscriminate fire and therefore a war crime.

When the Palestinians stop long enough that it's obvious they're not going to do it anymore, then the Israelis have to stop too. But as long as provocation keeps being offered, the Israelis will keep responding with force and it will all go 'round again. You don't get to claim martyr status if you ain't martyred. The Palestinians want to have their cake and eat it too. No matter how unfair it is, that's how it is. That is a bed the Palestinians made for themselves by engaging in terrorism themselves for so long. And we told them at the time that was how it would be. They don't like the options their olders left them with, but don't want to blame the olders for leaving only that. C'est la vie. C'est la guerre.

Sometimes, Gawd posts straightforward examples of clear-cut human rights abuses by Israel against its own arab population, and the way that Judaic biases by their government are part of the issue. I have no time for Hamas and the rest of the terrorist crowd, but Israel does some pretty appalling things...

You bet. And it would be great if the Palestinians hadn't been assholes for all those years and we could beat up on the Israelis about their human rights violations and actually get a plurality of Israeli citizens to agree. But they did what they did, and they're doing what they're doing, and they won't stop, so there's no handle we can use to stop the Israelis either. And now they wanna come blow our shit up instead of admitting they did it to themselves; and sorry, man, but that shit's not OK and we're gonna send our army to deal with it. Which we did, followed by extensive whining.

The almost automatic support they get from the US makes them like a spoiled child who is going to get supported by his big brother no matter how obnoxious he is being... (The US may be critical of Israel from time to time over the settlement program etc. but it would be fair to dismiss that as window dressing, given that it is only ever words...)

They're our allies, and as long as the Palestinians keep blowing shit up we haven't a leg to stand on trying to get them to stop shooting Palestinians. It really is as simple as that.

I wish it were otherwise. I despise the Israeli right wingnuts, they're just as bad as the ones we have here if not worse. But as long as they're fighting for their existence, there's no way to restrain them and trying too hard will just make them ignore us when the Palestinians finally do figure it out.

[Schneibster]

Back on topic more or less. Trace amounts of Iodine 131 have been detected drifting across Europe the past couple of weeks. The source hasn't yet been idenified but this material is used in nuclear weapons.

:facepalm:

[mistermack]

Schneibster, you gobble up the line that you are fed like an obedient little puppy.
Anything the Israelis do is justifiable as a result of provocation. Everything Palestinians do is unjustifiable provocation. How dumb can you possibly get? Why is it not the other way around?
The Israelis have stolen their country, bulldoze their houses, steal land and build settlements, and shoot up their schools with phosphorous bombs.
How is that not provocation? Only in the mind of someone who can't be fucked to think.
You seem to glory in your ignorance.

[JimC]

If the Israelis were purely responding to incidents of Palestinian terrorism, such as rocket lanches from Gaza, then fair enough; an armed response is perfectly reasonable. However, it is the treatment of ordinary civilian arabs, nominally citizens of their country, which is the appalling thing. The settlement programs gradually eat away at their small-holdings, and they have no redress...

It is slow and remorseless ethnic cleansing, with religious overtones. No amount of pointing out the evil deeds of Palestinian terrorist groups can change that.

[Cormac]

Israel has a rather justifiable siege mentality to some extent, I think.

Unfortunately, that is not connected to the sectarian nature of the state in question. Zionism as a concept was fully formed in the late 1800s, and was pretty much mapped out by the time of the Balfour Declaration.

Sectarianism should be anathema to anyone who claims to be in favour of democracy. (I know this is perilously close to a "No True Scotsman" statement).

[klr]

Once again, Gawd manages to drag a thread off the rails and onto his favourite (nay only) hobby horse. Don't we have a sub-forum for that? Unless and until there's some prima facie evidence that Israel is somehow involved in this, then any wider discussion of the whys and wherefores of the Middle East is well off-topic IMHO.

[Gawd]

Once again, Gawd manages to drag a thread off the rails and onto his favourite (nay only) hobby horse. Don't we have a sub-forum for that? Unless and until there's some prima facie evidence that Israel is somehow involved in this, then any wider discussion of the whys and wherefores of the Middle East is well off-topic IMHO.

You can't discuss Iran without including Israel given the propensity of Israel to attack Iranians and carry out extra judicial murders. And especially given this suspicious event and Israel gearing up to attack Iran and beating the war drums again.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Cunt]

tl:dr

[Warren Dew]

You can't discuss Iran without including Israel given the propensity of Israel to attack Iranians and carry out extra judicial murders. And especially given this suspicious event and Israel gearing up to attack Iran and beating the war drums again.

I'm not a fan of Israel, but to the extent they can slow down or stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, more power to them.

It seems like the computer virus attack has been renewed, too:

http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News ... ?id=245467

[Gawd]

You can't discuss Iran without including Israel given the propensity of Israel to attack Iranians and carry out extra judicial murders. And especially given this suspicious event and Israel gearing up to attack Iran and beating the war drums again.

I'm not a fan of Israel, but to the extent they can slow down or stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, more power to them.

It seems like the computer virus attack has been renewed, too:

http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News ... ?id=245467

Iran has the right to defend itself. To single it out when Israel and half the countries in the world already have nukes is anti-Semitic. /Snark

[Schneibster]

If the Israelis were purely responding to incidents of Palestinian terrorism, such as rocket lanches from Gaza, then fair enough; an armed response is perfectly reasonable. However, it is the treatment of ordinary civilian arabs, nominally citizens of their country, which is the appalling thing. The settlement programs gradually eat away at their small-holdings, and they have no redress...

It is slow and remorseless ethnic cleansing, with religious overtones. No amount of pointing out the evil deeds of Palestinian terrorist groups can change that.

As long as they stay away from the negotiating table there's nothing to be done.

I don't like it any better than you do. They did it to themselves, though. And it took decades. And they were told at the time this was what would happen and chose not to listen. Now they want us all to forget all that. Not gonna happen.